Indian Ambition

After the Uri incident and the recent surgical operations by Indian army, the questions is again raised, as can India take this kind of risk and the answer obviously is not very straightforward. But it’s time for India to stand its ground and stop being a silent spectator.

We cannot look at problems in isolation, considering the fact that we are connected one way or the other. Political relations, past history, border conflicts, current economy, religious sentiments, future ambitions and trade are some of the factors that drive foreign policies. Most of the time it is not just one factor, but combination of multiple factors.

If India has to survive and sustain in the current global economy and politics, it really needs strong leadership. It also has to make more global friends, have more say in the world politics, become self-reliant and most importantly dictate its own policies based on its own interests. With the exception of Indira Gandhi there hasn’t been any strong leader like Narendra Modi, who would take difficult steps in the interest of nation and also use all the diplomacy to create consensus among global community.

It has to stop being docile and rely only on dialog. It also needs to have a short term and long term plan. The Kashmir issue or the terrorism sponsored by Pakistan are superficial issues with deep roots in Pakistan’s political background and army having a larger say in its foreign policies.

From Indian standpoint, China is a bigger threat with its continuous effort to support CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), which means a lot to China as it opens up Arabian ocean for trade, giving access to oil from gulf and help them accelerate their trade in Africa. With China’s investment in Pakistan and few parts of Africa, it opens up huge avenues for China for its future growth.

Courtesy – http://www.sheir.org

China has shown its ambitions through aggressive investments in trade, infrastructure development, recurrently announcing Tibet and Taiwan as their territories and also continuing to threaten India across the border. Its high time that India stands its grounds, not let China dictate the regional politics, be diplomatic in its relations and also start strengthening itself by developing its own industries. Although we have made huge strides in service Industry and is one of the leaders in software development, we still have long way to go in manufacturing.

India’s ambitions to develop NSTC (North South Transport Corridor) would help all the member nations (India, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Ukraine) to develop a 30% cheaper and 40% shorter route, to increase their trade and tighten bilateral relations. This would help a lot in terms of collaboration of railways, roadways and ports development and can open up huge avenues for all these countries. We as a nation should focus on these kind of global collaborations and develop trade alliance that can be mutually beneficial.

Courtesy – wikimedia

Political stability, focus on development and strong leadership is what India needs at this moment to compete with the stiff international competition. We need to utilize our resources well, which we have in abundance, to become a formidable force to reckon with in world economy as well as politics.